Jodylee Bartal, Partner at Gadens, discusses tips and traps regarding financial agreements and succession planning, ahead of her presentation at The Tax Summit 2020.
Jodylee is a Partner at Gadens. She is an accredited family law specialist with 20 years’ experience advising on all issues involving married and de facto couples, including same-sex couples. Her practice covers everything from separation and divorce to parenting disputes, including IVF and surrogacy, as well as binding financial agreements and all aspects of financial issues and property settlements.
Jodylee assists families and family-owned businesses to plan for and guard against disruption caused by relationship breakdown. To top it all off, in 2019/2020 Jodylee was awarded Lawyer of the Year in the Family Law Category in the Best Lawyers Guide.
Session 14.1: Pre-nups – are they worth the effort?
Although Jodylee is a family lawyer by trade, her session will be highly relevant for tax professionals weaving through the intricacies of financial agreements.
“I look forward to chatting with other professionals and providing an update on the use of financial agreements as a tool to assist in asset protection and succession planning,” she says.
“I'm going to go through financial agreements, the introduction of the legislation and touch on some of the proposed legislative reforms that have been discussed but not yet implemented,” Jodylee says.
“And of course, we've got lots of talk about regarding family law review, as well as an overview of where I think things are going.”
Jodylee will go through the drafting aspects of a financial agreement and also the process.
“I'm going to try and give some tips and traps, add a bit of a checklist,” she says.
“From the position of the succession planning lawyer or a tax professional, it’s about knowing what sort of questions to ask clients and their families so they can consider where a financial agreement might be of assistance.
“Both conversations can be a little bit tricky sometimes.”
Jodylee’s session will also explore individuals and families that typically use financial agreements to identify their uses in a lot of those cases. This will allow tax and state planning advisers to spot the issue at hand.
Essential for “client service excellence”
From her experience, Jodylee has always liked to have members of her team at various levels attending key events like The Tax Summit.
“It's not just about access to the content, but also the opportunity to hear some of the discussion amongst the delegates, and the opportunity to network which is really important,” she says.
“Often the thing that makes the difference for your client is building the right team of people around you.
“Most networks should be built from early stages, not just as partner or director level.”
Jodylee says CPD events like The Tax Summit are crucial from a learning perspective and essential for client service excellence.
“Certainly, from my perspective as a family lawyer, I work with all sorts of other experts, including tactics, value, succession planning, and estate planning,” she adds.
“It has context, so having a good network of people is something that I find really valuable.”
The Tax Institute is combining two flagship events (National Convention and The NSW Tax Forum) into what will become the most significant tax program for tax and accounting professionals in the region.
This event is one members and non-members alike won’t want to miss. This is ground zero for our profession; the central point from which everything else revolves around.
There will be more than 60 sessions delivered by local and global tax experts, across SME, Corporate and Hot Topic streams. The Tax Summit also includes keynote sessions and four new streams: Professional Practice, Emerging Leaders, International and Technology.
Not to mention our hugely popular networking events, the Welcome Reception, and Gala Dinner featuring The Tax Adviser of the Year Awards.
